The second Death Star has been destroyed. The Emperor is dead. The galaxy celebrates. What happens next?

That’s exactly what the forthcoming comic book Star Wars: Shattered Empire will set out to answer as one of many new stories coming this fall as part of the Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens publishing program. The comic book picks up immediately after the Battle of Endor, showing that the destruction of the second Death Star wasn’t exactly an easy happy ending, and it certainly wasn’t the absolute end of the Empire either.

Find out what we learned about Star Wars Shattered Empire from an interview with series writer Greg Rucka that we break down after the jump!

First of all, here’s the official synopsis of the four-issue comic series arriving on September 2nd:

Emperor Palpatine’s twenty-year reign of terror came to an abrupt and fiery end in the skies above the forest moon of Endor. A decisive victory for the Rebel Alliance, to be sure, but even with the loss of its leadership, the Empire’s Moffs and regional governors retained their hold on important systems from the Core to the Outer Rim, thanks to the might of the Imperial Starfleet. Now, with a power vacuum atop the Empire, those Moffs will jockey for position and control, and the heroes of the Rebel Alliance will soon discover that a wounded and fractious Empire may be more dangerous than any threat they faced before!

Shattered Empire was written in collaboration with the Lucasfilm Story Group, the new group of Lucasfilm employees, headed up by Kiri Hart and created by President Kathleen Kennedy, whose job is to make sure every single Star Wars movie, TV show, book, comic book and video game tell one, big Star Wars story. This group also included Rayne Roberts, Pablo Hidalgo, and Leland Chee.

The Two Main Characters

The two main characters are Kes and Shara Bey, husband and wife Rebels. Shara is a pilot and Kes is part of the ground troops, so during the rebellion they’ve spent more time apart than they have together.

According to Rucka (via StarWars.com), at least in his mind, Kes and Shara joined the Rebellion after the first victory at Yavin in A New Hope, and they joined because they wanted to make sure they believed in and helped shape the future that their then-newborn child would be living in. This backstory is subject to change, but that was the emotional core in mind at the time of the writing.

The Time Period

The time period covered by Shattered Empire will be about three to six months following the Battle of Endor.

Kes and Shara think that the fight is over once the Battle of Endor is over, but they quickly learn that’s not the case. Rucka explains, “They’re both very tired veterans, and they come out of [the Battle of] Endor with the elation that we see in [Return of theJedi]. ‘We’ve won. It’s over.’ — only to discover that, no it’s not. The Empire was huge.”

The Empire Doesn’t Give Up

The Empire doesn’t just give up after the second Death Star is destroyed. Rucka says, “The Empire still has resources. The Empire still has an enormous fleet. They may be in disarray post the Battle of Endor, but to think that in that vacuum people aren’t stepping up [is shortsighted].”

In fact, some of the Empire may be even more aggressive now that they’re backed into a corner by the Rebels. Rucka says that while there may be some Imperials who just bail at this crucial point in the fight, but “for every Moff who does that, there are five who say, ‘Like hell am I leaving this post. We’ve got stormtroopers for a reason. You get out there and you shoot every last one of these upstart insurgents, these terrorists, and you make clear to them that the rule of law still stands.’ So it does get ugly.”